A Letter to Restart My Heart
by PostSecret Prompt Contest
Summary: A PostSecret Prompt Contest Entry:  I always hope to find an anonymous letter in my mailbox, explaining where he really is...


**Title: A Letter to Restart my Heart**

**Rating: T**

**PostSecret Used**: I always hope to find an anonymous letter in my mailbox, explaining where he really is. http:/bit(.)ly/hlMT9R

**Summary:** She wanted to run away with him, and he did run away, but not with her. He left and is no longer around, and she wonders everyday, where could he be?

_•PostSecret concept created by Frank Warren. Recognizable characters and story elements are the property of Stephenie_ Meyer•

* * *

Vicious cycles. Everybody has them, whether it is drinking problems, cigarette addictions, porn obsessions, or in my case, waking up every morning to check out my mailbox with hopes of finding a letter. It never comes. I already know it, but I can't find it in myself to stop.

He left, he's no longer here, he didn't stick around.

He just took off at the worse timing ever, but what can I say? That's just what I love about him, he doesn't care about fucking things off, he just goes for what he wants.

Today was no different, the same routine awaiting me, the moment I opened my eyes I could feel sweat running down my forehead, my hands shaking, and tears making my cheeks damp.

Nightmares always haunted my dreams, they were always about him but never the same. This one had shown me, looking in the mirror. I had a long white silk dress on and I was trying on a pair of white heels. I instantly recognized the image, knowing well it was my wedding dress, the one that I was going to be wearing this same day, a year ago.

_August the thirteenth._

_"Bella, you look amazing," Alice, my best friend told me with unshed tears in her eyes._

_"Alice, I never thought I would say this, but I'm definitely enjoying this shopping trip."_

_"I know, and Edward's jaw is so going to drop when he sees you walk in with that dress."_

_And for the first time, I felt pretty enough to answer with an "I know." I could really see his reaction playing in my mind._

_"Well, don't you dare look at the price tag! We're so getting it and I don't want to hear a word about it! It is your special, perfect, and once in a lifetime day we're talking about here!"_

_"Alice, I can't get it if it's too expensive! My wedding is about the man I love and myself, I could be wearing a black garbage bag and I wouldn't care. Besides, we have about five months to find one, what if I find one that I like better and I've already bought this one?"_

_I tried to reason with her about it, but I knew her well and I wasn't being heard. Deep down I knew I was going to get the dress even if its cost included giving them a kidney. I loved it._

_"First of all, let me tell you, all I heard coming out from your mouth was 'blah blah blah' which, I'm taking the liberty to translate into my own words:_

_'Alice, I absolutely agree with you this dress is perfect.' She paused to take in a lungful of air to continue,"And I must say you are absolutely right. Now go get back in your clothes and I'll be paying for this baby in the meantime."_

_I just turned around and headed towards the dressing room._

_"So, just like that? I win?" Alice squealed._

_I turned around just to see her jumping around like a five year-old with a giant candy._

_"Just because you would have gotten it even if I didn't agree."_

_"Ugh. Just shut up and let me have this victory. I can't believe Bella Swan is not making a fit about shopping."_

_When we got home I carefully placed the dress in the corner of my closet. I was keeping it a secret, I would surprise everyone when I walked down the isle, towards my man. Mine._

_I smiled at the thought as I heard him knocking, just in time, as always._

_I ran down the stairs with a huge grin on my face, but when the door opened, I met the most frustrated, angry face ever._

_"Edward, what's wrong?" I had never seen him like that before._

_"Nothing, I'm fine." He practically barked._

_"Come on, I'll make us some tea, then we can talk about it."_

_"I told you, there's nothing to talk about."_

_"Fine, then lets just have some tea, it will help you relax." There was definitively something going on, but I didn't press the subject._

_"I don't need to relax.," He said, in a low voice trying to sound calm, but he followed me nonetheless._

_We sat silently for a long time until I decided to break the silence._

_"Are you going to tell me babe?" I looked at him under my lashes. I knew he couldn't resist me like that._

_He sighed loudly and his words were barely above a whisper, "My dad called me today, I didn't answer but he left a message."_

_Edward had never had a good relationship with his parents, he claimed that they always tried to control him and his acts when he was younger and that in the first opportunity he found, he ran away and he hasn't seen them since. I think there has always been something behind the subject that he didn't tell me about, he had so much anger towards them that I couldn't quite understand._

_I took his hand in mine and squeezed it, signaling him to continue._

_"Apparently he heard about the wedding," He said in a frustrated tone._

_"And what did he want?" The worst case scenarios flooded my thoughts, is he going to try to ruin our wedding? Was he going to miss one of the most important days in the life of his son? Was he angry about it?_

_"I don't know, maybe he wanted me to feel guilty about not inviting him."_

_Wow. That was harsh._

_"You're not inviting your family to the wedding?" I was shocked. He couldn't be serious._

_"Those people are not my family Bella, besides you said you wanted a small ceremony."_

_"Edward you can't be serious and don't you dare blame this on me!"_

_His eyes were hard as if he was feeling no emotion at all._

_"I'm not blaming this on anyone! I'm just saying that those people simply don't deserve to be here! Why do they want to be present in my life now? What took them so long?"_

_"'Those people'? THOSE PEOPLE are your family and you must accept it! Yeah, maybe they fucked up, but hey! Everyone fucks up!"_

_"You don't get it! What they've done is unforgivable!" There was so much fury in those beautiful emerald eyes that they reflected a forest being burnt. Flames on every tree, destroying all the green._

_"So explain it to me! I'm going to marry you after two years of being together and still you remain a mystery to me!" I was going too far but at this point I couldn't control myself._

_"You have never asked! You complain about it but you have never had the guts to confront me and ask me about it! A hell of a wife you will be, honey!" His words came out as venom from his mouth and I couldn't react in any other way than crying._

_I ran towards my room with tears clouding my vision, feeling broken beyond bearable. I closed the door loudly and collapsed to the floor, my back pressed against the wall and me hugging my knees against my chest._

_I could hear him cursing and hitting the walls downstairs, maybe I was overreacting, but he was too._

_All of a sudden, the mess downstairs stopped and he began climbing the stairs. He had never been like this before, which made me think that I knew absolutely nothing about him. He had always been polite, never raised his voice, always held every door open for me, but now I couldn't help but doubt him. What was going to happen next? Because of the coldness I had seen in him I wondered if next step would be hitting me, it was so unlike him, something I never thought he would do, but, what if?_

_Suddenly the door flew open and my first reflex was to recoil, I hid my face between my hands and sobbed as he walked towards me._

_He fell to his knees and I peeked through my fingers. He was about to cry. He was broken, he didn't mean to, he was sorry, I knew that from the look in his eyes, he didn't speak, but he told me._

_I let my arms fall to my sides and he closed the space between us as he held me in his arms, he hugged me tight as if I was going to disappear. "Baby I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."_

_"Shhh..." I put my hand on his mouth and he stopped talking. I caressed his cheek and he inclined his head towards my touch, "It's fine I know you didn't mean to."_

_I tried to smile but I was still too shaken to look convincing. He just stared at the floor._

_I lifted his chin and made him move his head up. He focused his eyes on everything else in the room, avoiding me. "Hey, look at me." Unwillingly, he did._

_I couldn't find any words to tell him that I forgave him, that he could trust me, that we would get through this together, that I felt safe in his arms. And , that above all, that I loved him. So I didn't speak, instead I leaned closer and touched his lips with mine, slowly at first but then melting into a more passionate and loving kiss. We would have stayed that way for ages, but our lips broke contact when we needed to breathe. His lips never left my skin, he kissed my cheeks, forehead, my closed eyes, my earlobe, slowly descending to my neck. When he went back to my lips I immediately gave him access and our tongues began fighting for dominance._

_Many thoughts crossed my mind, but above them all, I had to express one._

_I pushed him back slightly and he responded instantly, he just rested his head on my own, and kept hugging me to him._

_After a few minutes thinking about what to say or how to say it, I lifted my head and looked at him in the eyes._

_"Edward, I know this is hard for you, but you need to trust me and we have to work things out."_

_He wasn't convinced by my words. He was trying to avoid talking about what happened._

_I wanted to do everything, anything that I could so I could replace the worry in his eyes with the joy that they usually held. So, without editing my thoughts, I just let them flow through words. "Baby, if you think this is too much, if the wedding is putting too much pressure on you, on us, we can always run away from the whole big-wedding scenario. We can go far away and get married, a small ceremony away from everybody, from everything, a place where we will just have each other, just you and me." I smiled and the idea made me so happy that I just hugged him closer to me._

_I stood immediately and exclaimed, "We can do it now. We can leave in this instant before anyone notices and not come back for a long time."_

_I started running around the room trying to get some stuff together so that we could follow my crazy, yet perfect plan right away, with no hesitation._

_I only stopped when I noticed something, the big white box in the corner of the closet. I turned towards Edward, I didn't need an expensive dress and a lot of people to join to the man of my dreams, we just needed ourselves. But I did need some sort of confirmation, to see the same passion and desire in him, the same excitement I was feeling, but he was distant, his mind was elsewhere and I just froze. He wasn't sure about this, he wasn't sure about us._

_I refused to let those ideas to flood my mind and before I could chicken out, I grabbed his hand and tried to pull him forward, to the door, so we could leave in that moment._

_But he didn't move, he was a statue, and when he glanced my way I knew something was wrong; his eyes were rock-hard._

_And the last words I heard from him were, "No, Bella, I can't" he hesitated a second, "I won't."_

_My heart broke._

_How could a few words manage to make my heart sink?_

_I just let go of his hand and fell to my knees, he just started walking away, not once looking back. I fell to my knees and the pain is the last thing I remember feeling._

Just the memories of what occurred almost a year and a half ago made me break into tears again. I never allowed myself to go to that corner of my mind; most of my life since then has consisted of numbness, evasion and denial.

My friends have tried to get me out of the fog, but I can't. If pain is what I have left to remind me of his existence, I welcome it. If numbness is reminiscence that he was once part of my life, then I accept it.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and cleaned my tears with the back of my free hand. I no longer cared about hiding them; it had been long since I cared.

I made my usual journey towards the mailbox and was surprised by a welcoming sun outside.

Once a shining sun had meant luck for me. Once a shining sun had made me smile. Once a shining sun had seen me dance along the sidewalk, or over the grass. Now a shining sun meant nothing, because the sun of my life was no longer around.

As always, when I searched into the mail all I found was junk; a lot of publicity papers and magazines. I walked towards the trash can when a crumbled piece of paper caught my eye.

My eyes watered once again and my hands shook so violently that the paper stash fell to the ground, and so did I.

Could it be what I have been waiting for?

What if it wasn't? I'd already had my hopes up so many times before.

What if it was? This was the question that scared me the most. What would I do once I got what I wished? It was only a letter, he wasn't coming back, he was just letting me know.

I decided to act before I thought it through and found more negative aspects than positive. I unfolded the page and tears clouded my vision, even though the header only said Friday August the 13th, I could recognize his handwriting. I ran my fingers over each letter, and didn't bother to go inside or stand up from the wet grass. I started reading as if my life depended on it, as if my heart would stop if I didn't, as if he was the ones saying the words while I read.

_Friday August the 13th_

_Dear Bella,_

_My angel, you have no idea how many times I have written this letter and thrown it away, how many times I've repeated these same lines in my head, to the point in which I've memorized every single word, or how many times I have tried to go back._

_I know it is probably too late and maybe you've moved on; found someone that actually deserves you, maybe you are now married, or have a baby or both. My head tells me that it was the best thing to do, but my heart yells that I was wrong in every imaginable way._

_I apologize for not showing my face, but I needed to explain and you wouldn't have let me, you probably would have closed the door on my face and I wouldn't blame you if you did, I deserve it._

_I do not however, deserve your forgiveness, what I have done was the worst mistake and to explain the reason behind it I need you to remember that night in the park, the night that we called 'the beginning of our life' the same night I asked you to marry me._

_You were sitting on a bench beside a huge oak tree you used to love, it was about six in the afternoon and you were reading one of your books. You looked so lovely and beautiful, yet as fragile as a porcelain doll, as if you could break at any moment. And from that moment, I promised myself that I would take care of you even if it cost me my own life, that I would never hurt you and that I would fix everything that made you feel uncomfortable. And I made the decision right then and there that I would make you my wife, not only because you loved me, or because we were perfecto together, but because I would never let anything stand in our way. I wanted to give you my whole life, my whole heart._

_So I walked to you and under the moonlight, with all the night stars as our witnesses, I promised you the world, the whole universe. But at the first opportunity, I let you down._

_So I left, not to be away from you —that was the most unbearable thing— but to fix_

_everything that could make me break my promise. And overall, to fix myself so I could be worthy of you._

_Since that night, the night I left, all my mind played was how much I was hurting you, how my past was affecting not only me but you too. How my own attitude towards the past was bringing me down and pulling you with me. And finally, I couldn't stand the fact that I made you feel scared, you were afraid of me and that made my heart ache as if a dagger had been pushed all the way through a single day has passed without regretting, but I can't stand it anymore so I'm begging you…_

_Please, Please, Please_

My fingers stopped tracing in that moment, tears had soaked the paper. I turned the page over so I could continue reading, but there was nothing in the back of the page. Frenetically, I searched between the other papers, but there was nothing, there wasn't a continuation.

I started sobbing hardly and my throat felt as if it had a huge knot, my breathing was irregular. I just dropped my head into my hands and I didn't even care if I had neighbors or not, if they thought I was crazy, it was nothing new.

I was feeling such a swirl of emotions, but one won the battle and it showed itself at the moment I lifted my head and yelled at nothing at all,

"PLEASE.. PLEASE.. WHAT? YOU SHOULD AT LEAST HAVE FINISHED THE LETTER."

And the most important question, the one that had been running through my thoughts every single day the past year and a half, the reason why I visited my mailbox every morning,

"WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? Where, where where…" By the time the last word left my mouth, it was barely above a whisper and my head was once again resting in my hands. I could feel the sun already starting to burn my skin but I didn't have enough energy to move.

I was worn out and the only one that could make this all better had only confused me even more. For the first time, my thoughts lingered to the only option I hadn't considered before.

I give up.

"Right behind you," A voice said before I could register the thought. It took me about five seconds to unscramble my mind and to figure that it wasn't a voice; it was the voice, his voice.

I turned just to find him lying right beside me, with pleading eyes as he continued.

"Please, please…" He placed his hand softly on the side of my face and I finally saw him. He was in regular clothes, but he looked different. His hair was longer than usual and it was obvious that he hadn't combed it, and he had a light beard covering his face. But, the difference was in his eyes. There was so much life behind them, as if he had dropped a huge weight that he carried before.

He was at peace, with himself, no more conflicts. He'd fixed it, for me.

He leaned closer and rested his forehead against mine. I could feel his hot breath against my skin as life slowly came back to me.

"Please, take me back," He said softly, and somehow, I could see that he doubted that I would forgive him.

But with him, everything fell back into place, I couldn't live without him and I knew he couldn't live without me. Our hearts belonged to each other and there was no way one of us could exist without the other.

Unable to speak, I just offered a weak smile and nodded, I was too overwhelmed for anything else.

One single tear rolled down his cheek, and he made no movement to stop it.

Suddenly he just stood up, and pulled me with him, as he guided me towards a car that was parked down the street.

Confused, I just stared at him and asked where we were going.

"Baby, nothing's breaking us apart never again, we're running away, just the two of us."

He leaned down and softly pressed his lips to mine, reassuringly.


End file.
